This paper addresses the issue of the moral status of non-human animals, or the question whether sentient animals are morally considerable. The arguments for and against the moral status of animals are discussed, above all the argument from marginal cases. It is argued that sentient animals have moral status based on their having interests in their experiential well-being, but that there are degrees of moral status. Two interest-based approaches are presented and discussed: (...) DeGrazia’s view that sentient animals have interests in continuing to live, and that their interests should be granted moral weight; and McMahan’s TRIA which similarly postulates that animals have interests and that in a given situation we should compare the human and animal interests at stake. Finally, the paper concludes that the anthropocentric approach to animal ethics should be abandoned in favour of the biocentric ethics. (shrink)

In this article I offer a philosophical review of (1) leading theories of the moral status of animals, (2) pivotal theoretical issues on which more progress needs to be made, and (3) applications to the setting of animal research. Such an examination demonstrates, I believe, that the practical implications of leading theories converge far more than might be expected. In addition, I hope this review helps to clarify particularly troubling issues that remain so they can be treated adequately.

Consciousness has an important role in ethics: when a being consciously experiences the frustration or satisfaction of its interests, those interests deserve higher moral priority than those of a behaviourally similar but non-conscious being. I consider the relationship between this ethical role and an a posteriori (or “type-B”) materialist solution to the mind-body problem. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if type-B materialism is correct, then the reference of the concept of phenomenal consciousness is radically indeterminate between (...) a neuronal-level property that is distinctive to mammals and a high-level functional property that is much more widely shared. This would leave many non-mammalian animals (such as birds, fish, insects and octopuses) with indeterminate moral status. There are ways to manage this radical moral indeterminacy, but all of these ways lead to profoundly troubling consequences. (shrink)

INTRODUCTIONThe contemporary debate over the moral status of animals reflects a mixture of traditions. Utilitarianism, which measures moral standing in terms of the ability to suffer, has been used to defend the widening-circle conception of morality. The difference between humans and other animals vis-à-vis moral standing diminishes in its light. Focusing on questions of agency, conscience, and reflective powers, the differences between humans and nonhumans seem greater. Darwinism has been invoked to bridge the gaps between the (...) intellectual and moral capacities of humans and those of other animals. This has led some to argue either that differences in agency, conscience, and the power to reflect are overrated or that they may not be absolute indicators of moral consideration.Debates over the moral status of nonhuman animals have had a long and stormy history. The considerations that drive the current debate – questions of the intellectual capacities of animals, questions about their moral sensibilities, and questions about their sensitive capacities – are ancient. Nonetheless, they first began to assume their modern form in the writings of the eighteenth-century British moral philosophers. Those individuals were struggling with the moral implications of discoveries in the natural sciences and an increasingly secularized approach to philosophical issues. Vivisection experiments and rudimentary anatomical studies not only showed that the bodies of animals were remarkably similar to the bodies of human beings but also showed that the brutes were capable of experiencing pain and suffering. (shrink)

According to a common view, animals have moral status. Further, a standard defense of this view is the Argument from Consciousness: animals have moral status because they are conscious and can experience pain and it would be bad were they to experience pain. In a series of papers :277–291, 2015a, J Agric Environ Ethics 28:11270–1138, 2015b, J Agric Environ Ethics 30:37–54, 2017), Timothy Hsiao claims that animals do not have moral status and criticizes the (...) Argument from Consciousness. This short paper defends the Argument from Consciousness by providing two simple responses to Hsiao’s criticism. (shrink)

The moral status of human-animal chimeras that have human brain cells is especially concerning. The concern is that such animals have the same high moral status as human beings. Why? Julian Koplin suggests that support for this concern is based on this claim: capacities unique to humans gives one a high or full moral status. Koplin then proceeds to convincingly object this claim. However, I argue that the concern is instead based on a different (...) claim: for those humans who do have a high moral status, it is their (or some of their) mental capacities that confer this high moral status. Since having a human brain that is not too impaired is sufficient for having these mental capacities, and human-animal chimeras -- with brains composed of a sufficient number, type, and structure of human cells -- will have a human brain that is not too impaired, it follows that such animals would have the same moral status as human beings. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Moral Critique of Research on Animals The Uses of Animals in Research The Response of the Research Community to the Moral Critique of Animal Research Practical Resolution References Further reading.

It matters a great deal whether animals have moral status. If animals have moral status, it may be wrong for us to use them as we currently do – hunting, farming, eating, and experimenting on them. The argument from marginal cases provides us with a reason to think that some animals have moral status that is equal to that of “marginal” humans.

In this article, I consider a number of arguments that assume that beings who have immortal souls occupy a special position in the sphere of moral concern. First, I place these arguments in their historical and cultural contexts. Next, I formulate several conditions of adequacy that all such arguments must satisfy. Subsequently, I distinguish two different general kinds of such arguments: Inclusionary arguments attempt to use the immortality of soul as a criterion for either including someone into a sphere (...) of morality while excluding others or, at least, for elevating someone's position within this sphere. Modifying arguments attempt to strengthen or weaken moral considerations that already apply to a being included into the sphere of morality. I argue that, although some modifying arguments may fulfill all conditions of adequacy, they have very little practical importance. (shrink)

There is extensive literature that indicates animals suffer considerably in the practices of factory farming and animal experimentation. In the light of the evidence of this suffering there is an urgent need to answer the question whether our current use of animals is ever morally justifiable. The aim of this thesis is to provide a critical examination of the moral status of animals and of our treatment of animals in these practices. My objective is to assess whether these (...) practices are ever justifiable and whether we have a moral obligation to revise our attitudes towards our use of animals. Animals are often denied moral standing on the basis that they lack certain capacities, such as rationality, language and the ability to think. Further, it is often thought that animals' supposed lack of such capacities could be used as a defence for our use of them in intensive farming and animal experimentation. Thus, in examining the moral status of animals this thesis also examines animals and their capacities in order to determine whether any of the arguments given against the moral standing of animals are sound. In seeking to discover the extent of our moral obligations towards animals and the necessary conditions for moral standing, I will demonstrate that, although animals used in factory farming and experiments do have moral standing, the only consistent course is to extend moral standing to all living things. I will conclude that although the possession of certain much-prized capacities is not necessary for moral standing, many animals do indeed possess such capacities, including the ability to use language. Centrally this thesis calls for a re-evaluation of our attitudes towards animals, particularly in respect of our beliefs about animals used in factory farms and experiments. (shrink)

Historically, society has not had a robust, institutionalized ethic for how animals should be treated. Before the Animal Welfare Act, the only laws constraining animal use in society were the anticruelty laws forbidding sadistic, deviant, purposeless, deliberate, unnecessary infliction of pain and suffering on animals, or outrageous neglect. These laws, both by statute and by judicial interpretation, did not apply to socially accepted animal uses such as research or agriculture. Because the overwhelming use of animals in society was in agriculture, (...) aimed at providing food, fiber, locomotion, and power, and because the key to agricultural success was having healthy animals, good husbandry and good care were enforced by the most powerful sanction, self‐interest; the anticruelty laws were only there for society to manage sadists and psychopaths unmoved by self‐interest. But with the emergence of new kinds of “normal” animal use—such as intensive agriculture and animal research, both of which caused animal pain and suffering that did not fall under the anticruelty ethic—society was forced to create a new ethic for animals that went “beyond cruelty.” The Animal Welfare Act was a start, but it did not address all of the ethical concerns that society has had about the treatment of animals. As evidence of the need for a new ethic for animals, thousands of bills pertaining to animal welfare have been promulgated across the United States in the last decade. The new ethic for animals essentially applies much of our social ethic for humans, mutatis mutandis, to the treatment of animals and embodies the desired protections in the legal system. (shrink)

Recent advances in human brain organoid systems have raised serious worries about the possibility that these in vitro ‘mini‐brains’ could develop sentience, and thus, moral status. This article considers the relative moral status of sentient human brain organoids and research animals, examining whether we have moral reasons to prefer using one over the other. It argues that, contrary to common intuitions, the wellbeing of sentient human brain organoids should not be granted greater moral consideration (...) than the wellbeing of nonhuman research animals. It does so not by denying that typical humans have higher moral status than animals, but instead by arguing that none of the leading justifications for granting humans higher moral status than nonhuman animals apply to brain organoids. Additionally, it argues that there are no good reasons to be more concerned about the well‐being of human brain organoids compared to those generated from other species. (shrink)

Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware of this, (...) particularly during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to alls); Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware of this, particularly during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts). (shrink)

Recent years have seen a growing interest among psychologists for debates in moral philosophy. Moral psychologists have investigated the causal origins of the opposition between utilitarian and deontological judgments and the psychological underpinnings of people’s beliefs about the moral status of animals. One issue that remains underexplored in this research area is the relationship between people’s disposition to engage in utilitarian thinking and their attitudes towards animals. This gap is unfortunate considering the tight philosophical connection between (...) utilitarianism and the claim that animals have the same moral status as humans. Indeed, the principle of utility leads naturally enough to the view that animals count every bit as much as human beings. In this paper, we report two empirical studies dedicated to bridging this gap. In Study 1, we looked at the relationship between attitudes towards animals and utilitarian judgments in the context of sacrificial dilemmas. In Study 2, we bypassed the problems raised by the use of such dilemmas as a measure of utilitarianism by relying on other types of thought experiments. Overall, our results suggest no strong correlation between utilitarianism and attitudes towards animals. Rather, the existence of a correlation between utilitarianism and attitudes towards animals very much depends on how both are measured. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has long maintained that Descartes considered animals to be unfeeling machines with no capacity for perceptual states like pain, and that Descartes's mechanistic view of animals was the basis for his claim that we owe animals no moral obligations. Several recent commentators have sought to repudiate this conventional wisdom, either by denying that Descartes had a purely mechanistic conception of animal perception or by attempting to argue that Descartes allowed for the possibility that animals have souls. An (...) examination of Descartes's writings in the light of his Greek and Christian philosophical precursors shows that he did indeed consider animals to be pure mechanisms without immortal souls; it was not this belief, however, but rather the Stoic principle of community that was the basis of his views on the moral status of animals. (shrink)

While contractualism seems to solve some of the more pressing concerns of other moral theories, it does not conclusively address the moral status of non-human animals. Peter Carruthers claims that contractualism excludes animals from having full moral status. I argue that Carruthers’ arguments are fatally flawed due to his reliance on contradictory claims, unlikely assumptions, and flagrant violations of the contractualist method. However, Carruthers also claims that we can treat animals wrongly and that it deserves (...) moral criticism. This claim is based in indirect moral significance. However, this position makes it impossible for Carruthers to avoid endorsing two extremely counter-intuitive claims. The work of C. Tucker and C. MacDonald allows us to demonstrate that contractualism does give animals full moral standing. They ground the criteria for a contracting agent in three characteristics that animals possess. A look at some possible objections reveals nothing devastating to their proposal. (shrink)

According to a widely shared intuition, normal adult humans require greater moral concern than normal, adult animals in at least some circumstances. Even the most steadfast defenders of animals' moral status attempt to accommodate this intuition, often by holding that humans' higher-level capacities (intellect, linguistic ability, and so on) give rise to a greater number of interests, and thus the likelihood of greater satisfaction, thereby making their lives more valuable. However, the moves from capacities to interests, and (...) from interests to the likelihood of satisfaction, have up to now gone unexamined and undefended. I argue that context plays a morally significant role both in the formation of an individual's capacities, and in the determination of the individual's interests and potential for satisfaction based on those capacities. Claims about an individual's capacities and interests are typically presented as unconditional; but on closer examination, they are revealed to be contingent on tacit assumptions about context. Until we develop an understanding of how to account for the role of context within our moral theories, attempts to defend special moral concern for human beings based on their superior capacities are less firmly grounded than is commonly thought. (shrink)

: Common morality theory must confront apparent counterexamples from the history of morality, such as the widespread acceptance of slavery in prior eras, that suggest core norms have changed over time. A recent defense of common morality theory addresses this problem by drawing a distinction between the content of the norms of the common morality and the range of individuals to whom these norms apply. This distinction is successful in reconciling common morality theory with practices such as slavery, but only (...) at the cost of underscoring the limits of common morality theory, in particular its inability to resolve disputes about the moral status of entities. Given that many controversies in bioethics center on the disputed status of various entities, such as embryos and nonhuman animals, this is an important limitation. Nonetheless, common morality theory still can be a useful resource in diminishing moral conflict on issues that do not involve disputes over moral status. (shrink)

In the last three decades, the consideration of whether non-human animals should be ascribed any moral status, and if so in what way it ought to be ascribed to them, has become of central philosophical, political and economic importance. Thus, given thecontemporary significance of what may be called (jar simplicity’s sake) the “animal issue,” it is worthwhile to examine in what way Ancient Greek philosophy might contribute to our understanding of the issue and to our philosophical response to (...) it. With this in mind,in this essay I examine the issue of the moral status of animals from a “critical” Aristotelian perspective, on the basis of which I shall attempt: (§I) to show how, unlike the Cartesian view of animal nature, Aristotle’s conception of the non-moral status of animals stillinforms the prevailing contemporary view of the animal, and (§II) to establish that Aristotle’s failure to ascribe moral status to animals should be rejected (a) given his admission that animals are, by nature, capable of suffering while they are unable to engage in rational deliberation, and (b) given his understanding of the connection between moral blameworthiness, natural disposition, and various kinds of acts, particularly un-chosen and chosen willing acts. In this way, we shall show that although the prevailing contemporary view of the animal’s moral status represents a slightly more “elevated” view than Aristotle’s, insofar as (typically) we do not explicitly claim, as Aristotle did, that animals are due no moral consideration, by critically appropriating the relevant Aristotelian texts, we nonetheless findrich philosophical evidence that permits us to further elevate our conception of the moral status of animals such that we are prepared to grant them genuine moral significance, not just in theory but also in practice. (shrink)

Most philosophical discussion of the moral status of animals takes place within a context of traditional ethics. I argue that the conceptual apparatus of utilitarianism and rights theory is historically and logically tied to an individualistic, atomistic concept of society. The liberal-democratic tradition is thus an unsuitable framework for understanding, analyzing, and solving environmental problems, including themoral status of animals. Concepts such as stewardship or trusteeship are more appropriate for the development of an environmental ethic.

The chief themes of this discussion are as follows. First, we need a theory of the grounds of moral status that could guide practical considerations regarding how to treat the wide range of potentially conscious entities with which we are acquainted – injured humans, cerebral organoids, chimeras, artificially intelligent machines, and non-human animals. I offer an account of phenomenal value that focuses on the structure and sophistication of phenomenally conscious states at a time and over time in the (...) mental lives of conscious subjects. Second, we need to map a theory of moral status onto practical considerations. I prefer the precautionary framework proposed by many, and fruitfully precisified recently by Birch. I have suggested that in addition to further discussion surrounding the evidential bar for attributing consciousness to different types of entities, more discussion is needed regarding how value and moral status may vary across different entity-types, and regarding the sources of value in an entity’s mental life. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity is widely used in contemporary ethics and law as a foundational criterion for moral reasoning. Nonetheless, the concept has recently received criticism from various quarters. Some of this criticism has come from representatives of the animal liberation movement. The concept of human dignity is accused of underpinning an ethics that is anthropocentric and speciesist. That is, human dignity is said to be used as the basis of an ultimately unjustifiable attribution of intrinsic moral (...) worth only to human beings and to lead, consequently, to a detrimental prejudice against other species. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, an entity has moral status if and only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Some philosophers, who think of moral status in terms of duties and rights owed to an entity, allow that moral status can come in degrees, with only some beings having status of the highest degree – that is, full moral status (FMS). We critically review the competing accounts of what qualifies (...) one for FMS. Some accounts demand cognitive sophistication, which excludes many children, while others are inclusive of children but fail by (a) putting children morally on a par with most animals (experiencing subject of a life), (b) invoking criteria of dubious moral relevance (potentiality, membership in a biological species), or (c) not securing impartial moral status (special relationships). We end with our own account, which attempts to rectify such problems, addressing specifically the moral status of children. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar argues that it is possible, and even likely, that radically enhanced human beings will turn out to be ‘post-persons’, that is, beings with a moral status higher than that of mere persons such as us.1 This would mean that they will be morally justified in sacrificing our lives and well-being not merely in cases of emergency, but also in cases of ‘supreme opportunities’ , that is, whenever such a sacrifice leads to ‘significant benefits for post-persons’. For (...) this reason, Agar believes, it would be morally wrong to allow any cognitive enhancement of people that might entail the risk of moral status enhancement.However, neither are there sufficient grounds to expect radically enhanced human beings to have a higher moral status than unenhanced human beings, nor would it, even if they did, be morally wrong to bring about their existence. We use moral status ascriptions mostly as a convenient shorthand to indicate a difference in capacities that strikes us as morally relevant. Rocks have zero moral status because they cannot feel or think, so we cannot hurt or kill them. Whatever we do to them, it does not affect them. Animals, on the other hand, …. (shrink)

A person of good character treats other sentient beings with care and compassion. Yet virtue ethics apparently has trouble accounting for the moral status of nonhuman animals because of its focus on excellent character traits, rather than the moral “patient,” and because of its non-codifiability, at least in some forms. The task of this article is to answer the question: How can virtue ethics account for the moral value of nonhuman animals in the context of biomedical (...) research? I argue that it can do so through attention to animal good lives, human-animal bonds, and the virtues themselves. The virtue ethics resources I draw on to support nonhuman animal value are not the same as those typically brought to bear in moral status discussions, but I suggest that moral status as usually conceived has its own problems as a tool for use in practical contexts like animal research. (shrink)

We address the moral importance of fish, invertebrates such as crustaceans, snails and insects, and other animals about which there is qualified scientific uncertainty about their sentience. We argue that, on a sentientist basis, one can at least say that how such animals fare make ethically significant claims on our character. It is a requirement of a morally decent person that she at least pays attention to and is cautious regarding the possibly morally relevant aspects of such animals. This (...) involves having a moral stance, in the sense of patterns of perception, such that one notices such animals as being morally relevant in various situations. For the person who does not already consider these animals in this way, this could be a big change in moral psychology, and can be assumed to have behavioural consequences, albeit indeterminate. Character has been largely neglected in the literature, which focuses on act-centred approaches. We see our character-centred approach as complementary to, not superior to, act-centred approaches. Our approach has the advantage of allowing us to make ethically interesting and practically relevant claims about a wider range of cases, but it has the drawback of providing less specific action guidance. (shrink)